Chinese New Year

Chinese language students at Collegiate bring in the Year of the Monkey. Read more

United Sisters and Brothers

Members of United Sisters and Brothers, Collegiate School’s Upper School resource group for African-American students, participated in a panel discussion during an Upper School assembly to share their perspectives on their experiences as students of color at Collegiate. As they shared openly, their peers were encouraged to be "active listeners." Read More

TEDx Youth

Members of the 2016 TEDxYouth@RVA organizing team celebrate their dedication to building a community event that highlighted the diverse, powerful ideas living in the Greater Richmond area. Read More

Connections Institute

Students participate in the Connections Institute, a yearlong process of challenge, growth and impact for high school sophomores, juniors and seniors that allows student delegates to break barriers, deal with biased behavior and develop an action plan to reduce prejudice in their schools.

Responsible Citizenship

Inclusion at Collegiate means consistent work across all areas of school life and curriculum to ensure that all members of its community feel fully respected and valued, and that our students develop the skills to thrive and lead in a diverse society. Our diversity reflects differences in identity that determine our experiences as community members. Dimensions of diversity include but are not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, ability/disability, socioeconomic status and sexual orientation. Collegiate strives to instill in its students the ability to be flexible in using different lenses to make sense of the world. Collegiate emphasizes these divisional focus areas to create an inclusive community which values diversity: Grades JK-4: Developing empathy; Grades 5-8: Building a sense of community and understanding multiple perspectives; Grades 9-12: Affirming one’s personal identity; feeling like a valued member of the Collegiate community; examining social issues and engaging multiple perspectives to be a contributing member of the Collegiate community and beyond.

4th Grade Spanish language students explore the theme of “Family” by taking a video trip to visit families in five Spanish speaking countries; they learn about their Spanish peers’ lives and education experiences in Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama and Puerto Rico.

The 5th Grade history curriculum focuses on ancient civilizations, including the basic tenets of the five major world religions. Students visit places of worship in Richmond to learn more about Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam.

In AP Statistics, Upper School students use their math skills to focus on social problems that face the world today, including topics like disease, poverty and population growth. Greater understanding and empathy for the challenges facing real people around the world are gained through reading and analyzing statistics.

Ignite - Inclusion

Several weeks ago, Collegiate School 4th Grader Catherine Conner was interviewed by NBC12 about how she started a Kindness Club. Immediately, Gini Bonnell, a Richmond resident, contacted Lower School counselor Kelsey Felton and asked to meet the club members.

Collegiate School today hosted the 32nd annual Meet in the Middle, a Special Olympics event for Henrico County middle school students organized by Collegiate 10th Graders. Nearly 300 visiting students competed in multiple sporting events on Grover Jones Field.

Collegiate School 4th Grader Catherine Conner was recently interviewed by NBC12 reporter Terrance Dixon about how she started a Kindness Club. She and other students in the club have collaborated during "working lunch" periods to find ways to spread kindness throughout the Lower School.

In October, six Collegiate Middle School students attended The Prejudice Awareness Summit at VCU chaperoned by Carolyn Villanueva and Amasa Monroe. The Summit is designed to increase awareness, knowledge and acceptance of ethnic and cultural differences. The students returned to Collegiate and worked with Ms. Villanueva and Mr. Monroe through the fall and winter semester on a presentation summarizing their learnings that they then presented to the Middle School in assembly.

As the second phase of Envision Richmond, Collegiate School’s Capstone program for 8th Graders, students this week continued their connection with the Richmond-area nonprofit organizations they learned about last fall.

As part of the Middle School's annual series of religion assemblies, our 5th-8th Graders learned about Sikhism from sisters Manleen and Sachpreet Kaur. Wearing traditional Sikh dress, they taught students about the basic tenets of Sikhism, with a focus on music. They showed students traditional instruments and performed a sacred piece.

Carolyn Villanueva's 6th Grade English classes met up with 6th Grade students from Anna Julia Cooper Episcopal School at the Richmond Children's Museum and shared our poetry out loud. The Poetry Slam experience helped students build confidence, explore their voices and identity, and connect to their community.

Three members of United Sisters and Brothers, Collegiate School’s Upper School resource group for African-American students, participated in a panel discussion during a February 2019 assembly to share their perspectives on their experiences as students of color at Collegiate.

A group of Collegiate seniors who are taking the River City Capstone class visited the Richmond Slave Trail this week with faculty members Rhiannon Boyd and Brad Cooke in their ongoing efforts to understand the James River and its impact on the Richmond region.

Collegiate Middle School teacher Kate Cunningham’s 5th Grade girls advisory took a proverbial trip around the world today when a special guest shared her experiences with education, literature and equal rights.

Collegiate senior Maya Jackson recently had a poem published in di-vêrsé-city, a youth anthology project curated by Austin Poets International. This nonprofit organization based in Austin, Texas promotes literary excellence by uniting poets from around the world to celebrate the diversity of humanity through the power of written and spoken word.​ In addition to publishing youth and adult anthologies each year, the organization hosts the annual Austin International Poetry Festival.

Today our Upper School leaders offered their classmates an opportunity to unite against hate and promote a community of love and respect for all identities, by voluntarily wearing a blue ribbon. Buckets of blue ribbons were placed in the Upper School hallway and students were invited to take one and pin it on for the day.

Collegiate was delighted to host jazz pianist Justin Kauflin today for a performance and short question-and-answer session with Upper Schoolers. The visit was a unique opportunity for students to engage up close with a well-known musician. Mr. Kauflin, blind since age 11, began performing jazz professionally by age 15. He worked with Quincy Jones on his second full-length CD, "Dedication," which was released in January 2015. The CD debuted at No. 6 on CMJ Jazz chart, No. 10 on Billboard's Traditional Jazz chart, hit No. 1 on JazzWeek's chart and remained in the Top 10 spot for nine straight weeks. His latest project, "Coming Home," also produced by Quincy Jones, was released last month.

Collegiate senior Cody Patterson was invited to speak in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Connections Institute at the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities' 2018 Humanitarian Awards Dinner. Over the summer, Cody attended Connections, a weeklong diversity camp for Virginia high school students, on behalf of Collegiate. He took to the podium to share his experience and how it helped him grow. He is pictured here with former Collegiate parent John Stallings (left), who received a VCIC Humanitarian Award, and with VCIC Executive Director Jonathan Zur (right).

During a special presentation last week, five Collegiate students shared how student endowments made possible by the generosity of Collegiate School families enabled them to travel and explore their individual areas of interest. One of those students, senior Azzuri Fleming, received the Mary Parker Moncure Vaden Endowment Award and used her funding to create a community-wide music festival for youth called Beats, Rhymes and Life.

“I did this because I feel like there is a lack of resources and outlets in Richmond for youth who want to pursue music seriously,” Azzuri said.

Five Collegiate School students shared during a special presentation today how student endowments made possible by the generosity of Collegiate families enabled them to travel and explore their individual areas of interest.

As part of Collegiate School 4th Graders' study of immigration, parents of our students are invited to visit and share their immigration stories. Today, the students heard from Dr. Bushra Mubashshir Shah, who immigrated from Kashmir in 2007 in search of a better life for her family. As 4th Graders have in previous years, this year's group also heard from John Dau, Collegiate's Global Scholar-in-Residence and a former Lost Boy of Sudan. Other parents are scheduled to visit soon.

Students in some of Collegiate School’s Upper School biology and Spanish classes participated in a co-curricular activity today that allowed them to study themes across two academic specialties and learn how African music, song and dance have influenced Latin American culture.

The students welcomed Kevin LaMarr Jones, founder, artistic director and choreographer for Claves Unidos ("United Rhythms”), a Richmond-based dance company, to demonstrate the interconnection between the two subjects.

At Collegiate School, every adult plays a vital role. Sometimes, it’s high profile. Sometimes, it’s understated or even far-behind-the-scenes. Really, though, everyone’s role, job description notwithstanding, is the same: Work together, be positive and respectful, and do all that you can to ensure the well-being of our children. In her 27 years of service to Collegiate, Sara Noftsinger took her role to heart, and, without a doubt, she played it well.

Three days a week throughout the school year, Collegiate Upper School students can be found tutoring and mentoring immigrant and refugee students at Quioccasin Middle School through the Tuckahoe YMCA’s Strengthening Teens Academically and Recreationally (STAR) program. Our 2018-19 volunteers participated in their first tutoring session of the school year earlier this week, helping Middle Schoolers with their homework and engaging them in physical activity and in an arts and craft project. All involved are looking forward to a great year ahead!

Erica Coffey, Director of Global Engagement and Inclusion, worked with the participants of the New Teachers Institute (NTI) on the topic of multiple perspectives sharing insights into student choices and curriculum design.

Collegiate School 5th Graders took part in the Hindu Holi festival of colors, which celebrates warm weather and new beginnings. The colors were provided by two 5th Grade boys, who are of the Hindu faith. They were excited to share this tradition with their classmates. And their classmates had a ball!

In the River City Capstone, Collegiate seniors explored how the economic, political and cultural landscape — historically and presently — is inextricably linked with the environmental landscape and health of the James, the city and the citizenry.

During the month of April, Collegiate School worked with several community partners to construct and donate nearly a dozen piñatas to the 17th annual Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s ¿Qué Pasa? Festival.

Collegiate School today hosted the 31st annual Meet in the Middle, a Special Olympics event for Henrico County Middle School students run by Collegiate 10th Graders. Nearly 300 visiting students competed in multiple sporting events on Grover Jones Field.

Members of the Upper School Prism student resource group observed today's national Day of Silence by distributing pins with rainbow colored ribbons and sharing information with their classmates on why some Upper School students have voluntarily participated for more than five years.

Collegiate was honored to host the Virginia Diversity Network’s spring conference. During the all-day session, which focused on the theme of Interfaith Dialogue, four community leaders and scholars, including Collegiate Upper School English teacher Dr. Leah Angell Sievers, served on a panel. They tackled difficult questions, modeled interfaith dialogue and sparked conversation among the 30 participants from various Virginia-based independent schools, including The Steward School, St. Catherine’s School, St. Christopher’s School, Flint Hill School, St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes School, St. Michael’s Episcopal School and St. Anne’s-Belfield School.

​Dr. Corey Walker, Vice President and Dean of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University, visited Collegiate School today to discuss the issues of race, place and space with Upper Schoolers who are studying human rights, the statues on Monument Avenue and the culture of the City of Richmond.

A group of Collegiate Upper Schoolers and Erica Coffey, Collegiate Director of Global Engagement & Inclusion, participated in a symposium at St. Christopher's School regarding what it's like to be a Muslim students in Virginia.

Collegiate School students spent three days this week learning from well-regarded artist Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr., whose work has been featured in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stamperia del Tevere in Rome, and in numerous other museums and university settings around the nation and globe.

A group of high school students from New York visited the Richmond area last weekend as guests of Collegiate School lacrosse players and their families. It was the third time Harlem Lacrosse & Leadership (HLL) has come to the area to participate in clinics and play pickup games with athletes on lacrosse teams at Collegiate and Highland Springs High School.

America is often referred to as a “melting pot,” bringing people together from various backgrounds to create a society based on equality, freedom, and liberty. Throughout United States history, there have been many distinguished figures that have led movements to advocate for equal rights of all people in America’s diverse community. Collegiate’s Lower School 4th graders have extensively studied these stories and presented them in a culminating production on March 16 called “An American Mosaic.”

Recent issues of The Match, Collegiate's student-run online news site, featured several articles related to the Responsible Citizenship pillars. Each is the result of in-depth research, reporting, writing and editing, as each author delves deeply into a topic of their choosing. Highlights include:

As part of Collegiate School’s senior Capstone course, International Emerging Leaders - Americas, students focus on an in-depth service learning program in partnership with Sacred Heart Center, a Richmond nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the Latino community.

Members of Collegiate's 5th-6th Grade Mosaic Club recently visited Postive Vibe Café to learn about the Richmond restaurant’s mission to train and employ people with disabilities. Middle Mosaic is a club that seeks to build an even better School community in the Middle School. The trip to Positive Vibe was the group's culminating event for an activity club members participated in to understand differences that come from abilities and disabilities.

As part of their ongoing research for a senior Capstone class The River City, a group of 12th Graders met with two James River advocates yesterday to learn about Richmond's history and the impact of the river on the city's evolution.

In honor of Black History month, Collegiate School 1st Graders learned about jazz and improvisation in music class, and then attended a mini-concert by the Upper School Jazz Band, directed by Bryan Hooten. Continuing their studies, the students then created drawings in art class as the basis for collages during their exploration of Romare Bearden, a Harlem Renaissance artist who often improvised with jazz musicians and included them in his artwork.

Eleven Upper School students from United Sisters and Brothers, one of Collegiate School’s student resource groups, visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., in February.

Collegiate Upper School student Jensen Richardson served as the guest speaker at a recent Town Hall meeting with Kindergartners. In December, Jensen traveled to India. Prior to his trip, the Lower Schoolers asked him this question: “How are Collegiate Kindergarten students the same and different from five- and six- year-olds who live in different countries?“

To gain a better understanding of immigration in France, Collegiate Upper School students in Holly Fairlamb’s Honors French V class invited Martine Tchitchihe, a human rights advocate, and John Dau, Collegiate’s Global Scholar-in-Residence, to describe their experiences navigating the immigration process in the United States.

Collegiate 6th Graders in Middle School humanities teacher Carolyn Villanueva's class created “found poems” based on speeches and the definition of "Beloved Community" by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The students highlighted words meaningful to them and unveiled their own poetry and art to honor and share important messages from Dr. King.

Collegiate School seniors enrolled in the Senior Capstone course, The River City, met a James River Park System biologist at the vertical slot fishway on the river’s Bosher's Dam this week to see firsthand the intricate "fish ladder" that enables native species such as the American shad to return upriver to spawn, despite the presence of the dam.

Collegiate Middle School students recognized United Nations Human Rights Day this month in honor of the U.N. General Assembly's adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

Each year, the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), gathers together 1,600 students from across the country at the Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC). The conference is led by returning students, who receive training to become peer facilitators, and trained adult facilitators.

Collegiate 4th Graders hosted nearly 100 guests from ReEstablish Richmond this evening in Centennial Hall for a potluck dinner, a culminating service learning event as part of their immigration studies. ReEstablish Richmond, a nonprofit organization, helps refugees transition to their new lives in the city.

In Collegiate School’s ongoing efforts to help students, faculty and staff better understand each other and the world in which we live, the School has continued this school year to foster conversation, self-reflection and meaningful action around diversity and inclusion.

As part of their study of immigration in social studies, Collegiate’s entire 4th Grade today chatted with students from Bon Air Elementary School via Google Hangouts. The Bon Air students, recent arrivals from Puerto Rico and Latin and South America, offered a child-to-child perspective of their experiences.

The fourth annual TEDxYouth@RVA will kick off next week on Saturday, Nov. 18 in Collegiate School’s Hershey Center for the Arts. The general public is invited to hear a wide range of local speakers reflect on the theme Monumental.

Fourteen Collegiate School faculty and staff members recently attended the Virginia Diversity Network's Workshop Overcoming Bias: Becoming Change Agents. More than 60 participants from independent school throughout Virginia attended the workshop. Keynote speaker, Matthew Freeman, co-author of Overcoming Bias, led attendees in various activities, including discussion and self-reflection.

As part of their study of immigration, Collegiate School 4th Graders heard from the first of three community members this week about their experiences coming to the United States. During their study, the students are attempting to answer the question: How can we help immigrants/refugees transition as they begin a new life in our community?

Collegiate Middle Schoolers launched a club called Syrian Immigrant Refugee Association (SIRA) to focus on the plight of refugees. The group’s focus asks, How might we raise awareness for those who feel forgotten? The answers to the posed question will guide the mission of the group as they look for ways to raise awareness for the refugee crisis.

Thirteen Collegiate School students, 11 rising 8th Graders and two rising sophomores, met last spring to design JUMP, a weeklong summer program filled with interactive games and activities, for 2nd and 3rd Graders enrolled in Peter Paul Development Center.

For one week this summer, five Collegiate students, nominated by their peers or a faculty member, represented the School at the Harold M. Marsh, Sr. Connections Institute, sponsored and run by the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities.

Each year, Collegiate School students in 5th-8th Grade attend five assemblies that explore a theme in each of the major world religions. This year’s religious assembly theme is storytelling and sacred texts. Past themes have included prayer, art, architecture and dance, rites of passage and women’s role in the religion.

At Collegiate School, the first Tuesday of the month in the Middle School is designated Inclusion Tuesday, during which advisors lead an activity related to diversity and inclusion. In the final Inclusion Tuesday of the year, students participated this morning in a scavenger hunt to learn more about each other and focused on promoting kindness.

Collegiate Upper School students recently attended the Virginia Diversity Network's Upper School Student Diversity Conference at St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School in Northern Virginia. The conference brought together Upper School students from independent schools to consider ways to make their schools more inclusive.

Dr. Imad Damaj, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at VCU and a board member of the Islamic Center of Virginia, spoke about Islam and the sacred text at the fourth Middle School Religion Assembly.

International education does not just include learning about distant peoples and lands. Blair Chewning’s 4th Grade class, and the rest of the 4th Grade, are currently working to create books on tape for Ridge Elementary School in Henrico County, which currently hosts one of the largest bilingual and refugee student populations in the area. Recording books on audio will help those students learn and speak English, their second language.

Sixteen Collegiate School seniors returned home from Mexico on Saturday after participating in the 4th annual Youth Forum on International Dialogue, as part of Collegiate’s International Emerging Leaders - Americas program.

The Collegiate Upper School Jazz Band performed during the Richmond Peace Education Center’s annual Generation Dream concert on Wednesday at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in the city. Generation Dream 2017 is part of an “edu-concert” series held during Black History Month to honor of Dr. King. It features dozens of talented youth from the Richmond metro area.

Two new “Buddy Benches” on Collegiate’s Lower School campus — one near Fort Cougar and the other near the Estes Building patio — were installed last week to teach students about empathy and inclusiveness.

As part of Collegiate’s inclusion programming, Middle School students listened to eight fellow classmates speak about their experience at the Prejudice Awareness Summit last October. The students hoped to lessen the prevalence of cliques, and talked about expanding your circle of friends and not limiting yourself to one group.

Collegiate 6th Grader Naadia Rashid served as a guest speaker in Ms. Cunningham's 5th Grade Advisory and shared information about her Muslim faith and family's hajj to Mecca in 2014. Mrs. Cunningham's history students concluded their study of Islam and welcomed Naadia and her insights.

Collegiate's MiddleSchoolMosaic Club visited Postive Vibe Café, a Richmond restaurant that offers comfort food and catering. The eatery is also a nonprofit organization dedicated to training and employing people with disabilities in food services.

Students in JK-4th Grade learned about the Chinese New Year holiday today at their Lower School assembly. As Lower School Head Librarian Allison Williams read “Chelsea’s Chinese New Year” by Lisa Bullard, Lower School Chinese teacher Xin-Yi Fergusson interspersed additional details about the important family celebration. In attendance were students visiting from China for the International Emerging Leaders – Asia program.

The second of five assemblies that make up the Middle School Religion Assembly series took place this week. The religion assembly theme is "Sacred Stories and Storytelling in Five Major World Religions." Director of Responsible Citizenship Clare Sisisky and 9th Grader Shreya Sharma discussed stories from Hinduism. Shreya shared the importance of Hindu stories that emphasized the values of loyalty and hard work.

Collegiate School held its first Religion Assembly for the Middle School in what will be a yearlong series focusing on sacred stories in five major world religions. VCU Department of Religious Studies and School of World Studies Adjunct Professor Jan Hatcher-Conquest kicked off the series by presenting a history of sacred stories in religion and the commonalities shared by Christianity, Judaism and Islam in the creation story.

Seven Upper School students recently attended Diversity Dialogue Day at the University of Richmond. Diversity Dialogue Day is a one-day high school forum that brings together students from Virgnia public and indpendent schools. This year's theme was #powerofstory.

A delegation of 12 Collegiate School Middle School students attended the Middle School Diversity Leadership Conference at St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes School in Alexandria, Virginia, today. The Cougars, members of Collegiate’s Mosaic group, joined 150 students from 13 schools to focus on making their institutions more inclusive.

On Saturday, Nov. 19, the third annual TEDxYouth@RVA will take place in Collegiate School’s Hershey Center for the Arts, and the general public is invited to hear local speakers expound on the theme “What Now?”

Guest speaker Reginald E. Gordon joined Collegiate School students in their Senior Seminar: Poverty and Prosperity, along with members of the Collegiate Community Council and the Mosaic Club yesterday to talk about his work as Director of the Office of Community Wealth Building for the City of Richmond.

Collegiate's 6th Grade Chinese language students met with a local Chinese Senior Group this week. Their visit brought alive their study of Chinese language and culture, and provided them with an intergenerational experience.

In Indian culture, Diwali is one of the biggest holidays and a five-day festival of lights celebrated worldwide by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains.

At Collegiate's Lower School, Kindergarten parent Rupa Tak led students in learning about Diwali by reading a book about the holiday. Dr. Kavitha Krottapalli visited with Mrs. Brown's 3rd Grade classroom, in which her son is a student, to present about India's Festival of Lights. The Lower School will learn more about the different religious traditions celebrated by Collegiate families this year through books as part of the Lower School theme "Growing with Books."

Students were enveloped in the world of the Maasai when Chief Joseph ole Tipanko, Cicilia Seleyian and John Kilenyi Parsitau visited Collegiate for a Middle School Assembly and 2nd Grade class presentation. Chief Joseph tours the U.S. annually in partnership with the United Nations to share stories of his people, their history, culture, traditions and the challenges of assimilating into 21st-century demands. He is on a mission to improve living conditions for his impoverished people while clinging tenaciously to the beauty of old culture and traditions.

This past weekend, 15 Collegiate School families hosted 27 players from Harlem Lacrosse & Leadership (HLL) as they participated in lacrosse clinics, played pickup games with Collegiate athletes and visited two local colleges in the Richmond area. Last year, Collegiate lacrosse players visited Charlottesville to engage with HLL.

Thirteen seventh and eighth graders attended a Middle School Diversity Leadership Conference “Stand Up; Speak Out! Speak Up; Stand Out! – Empowering and Preparing Middle School Students to Lead” in November with about 175 students from various DC and Virginia schools. At the conference, one of topic students discussed was ways that people are stereotyped and mistreated. The Collegaite Middle School students helped create a lesson on this topic that was incoporated into the MS advisory curriculum in January.